‘Padmavati’ set in Kolhapur attacked and set on Hindu retaliatory fire.

‘Padmavati’ set in Maharashtra torched, crew beaten up by unidentified Hindu group.

Upananda Brahmachari | HENB | Kolhapur | March 15, 2017:: Barely a month and a half had passed after the staunch protest of the movie Padmavati’s Jaipur shoot in which members of the film crew including director Sanjay Leela Bhansali were physically assaulted by a mob of a Hindu group, Karni Sena. What should we call the act of burning of the same Padmavati set near Kolhapur in Maharashtra, if not a kind of sharp retaliation against recurring Bollywood menace against Indian history and Hindu sentiments?

Consecutive Jaipur and Kohlapur retaliations clearly give the message that public is now not ready to tolerate the culpable Bollywood trick to distort Indian History, Hindu mythology and their sentiments anyway anymore.

A group of 10-15 masked attackers torched the base camp of the sets of Bollywood film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s much-awaited movie, ‘The Legend of Padmavati’, at Masai plateau in Panhala taluka, 35km from Kolhapur, at around 1am on Wednesday and beat up members of the film crew. None of the attackers has been identified.

Police suspects any Hindu group behind the scene of attack the Padmini shooting set.

Police said dress material, costumes, shoes, expensive drapery and wooden logs and planks used to recreate a medieval India setting were reduced to ashes. Most of the material was packed in metal suitcases. Initial estimates put the loss at Rs 4 crore.

Kolhapur SP M B Tambde said four tents had been put up at Masai plateau for the shooting.

“Around 60 crew members were staying in one tent, the costumes and other material were kept in two other tents, and the fourth sheltered around 50 horses. The attackers stormed the area with sharp weapons, sticks and bottles containing petrol.

They attacked crew members, threatened to burn them alive and set on fire the tent that stored the costumes,” he said.

Tambde said crew members tried to apprehend some of the attackers while they were fleeing. “However, the miscreants beat them up and vanished in the dark. Two crew members suffered minor injuries and were taken to a private hospital,” he added.

In January, the shooting of the movie was stalled by members of a group called the Karni Sena who allegedly assaulted Bhansali and tried to vandalise the sets at Jaipur’s Jaigarh Fort.

The group was protesting against what it claimed were “wrong facts” in the movie, specifically what they said were love scenes between the legendary Rani Padmini of Chittor and Allauddin Khilji, a sultan of the second dynasty to rule the Delhi Sultanate. Bhansali, who had denied any such scenes existed, had called off shooting at the fort.